Race Report: ABC Criterium #2
Feb. 17th, 2007 07:51 am"If you want to be ahead, act as though you are behind."
-Lao Tzu
I was encouraged and enthused by the last ABC criterium. Really? I rode a smart race, and I craftily followed the strongest woman in the field, and really, it just didn't seem that hard. So, over the ensuing week, I attacked my training with vigor... hitting every workout and even throwing in a few leg workouts in the gym. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meowmie, go ahead and snicker, because I know you can predict the rest of the story...)
Then I showed up to race on Saturday... only to find that the large team of inexperienced women... who showed up as two different teams last week... was now a single team. Worse, someone had explained tactics to them. (The team captain is a smart cookie, so although she wasn't very fit, she sat in the pack and coached the newest riders.)
The result: I got ganged up on by a team of four people who now knew how to use that to their advantage. My leg workouts over the course of the week left the fast-twitch muscles in my legs AWOL, so I wasn't capable of the short bursts of all-out speed you need for criterium racing.
R and I discussed it, and the smartest thing for me to do would have been to mark the fastest rider in the group (who lapped the field that day) and sit on her. (Translation: ride directly behind her, but don't do any work.) That would have guaranteed me second place.... assuming the opposing team was not smart enough to call that rider back to the pack.
And the result: I placed 6th of 7. And worse?? The other team now knows that tactics actually work. This encourages them. Whooooooooooooooops!
Lesson #2: Bike racing is fundamentally different from triathlon training (in which you need to go at a steady, consistent hard pace, and you don't necessarily need a top end, especially this early in the season.) From now on, No leg workouts before race weeks! I cared more about doing well at that early-season race than I wanted to admit to myself.
-Lao Tzu
I was encouraged and enthused by the last ABC criterium. Really? I rode a smart race, and I craftily followed the strongest woman in the field, and really, it just didn't seem that hard. So, over the ensuing week, I attacked my training with vigor... hitting every workout and even throwing in a few leg workouts in the gym. (
meowmie, go ahead and snicker, because I know you can predict the rest of the story...)Then I showed up to race on Saturday... only to find that the large team of inexperienced women... who showed up as two different teams last week... was now a single team. Worse, someone had explained tactics to them. (The team captain is a smart cookie, so although she wasn't very fit, she sat in the pack and coached the newest riders.)
The result: I got ganged up on by a team of four people who now knew how to use that to their advantage. My leg workouts over the course of the week left the fast-twitch muscles in my legs AWOL, so I wasn't capable of the short bursts of all-out speed you need for criterium racing.
R and I discussed it, and the smartest thing for me to do would have been to mark the fastest rider in the group (who lapped the field that day) and sit on her. (Translation: ride directly behind her, but don't do any work.) That would have guaranteed me second place.... assuming the opposing team was not smart enough to call that rider back to the pack.
And the result: I placed 6th of 7. And worse?? The other team now knows that tactics actually work. This encourages them. Whooooooooooooooops!
Lesson #2: Bike racing is fundamentally different from triathlon training (in which you need to go at a steady, consistent hard pace, and you don't necessarily need a top end, especially this early in the season.) From now on, No leg workouts before race weeks! I cared more about doing well at that early-season race than I wanted to admit to myself.
